Carpentry and Woodworking - Butcher Block STYLE table top

Hello,
I am a novice woodworker and I just discovered this site yesterday. I am pretty excited about having this kind of a resource for help. I recently bought my first block plane and wanted to practice using it before I need it. So the idea I had was to take some scrap pieces of wood, cut them into 6" sections, then glue them up, butcher block style. I then planed the piece and to my surprise, what started out as a practice throw away piece, turned out pretty good and now I would like to use it. My wife suggested I make her a phone table (the piece is 12"x20"), which I think I can do. But my problem is that I don't know how to finish it. It has poplar, white oak, cherry, walnut and red oak in it. Everything I have read gives different instructions for these different types of woods. The surface will never be used in food preparation. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long winded explaination.

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forums!

You've come to the right place. A normal "food friendly" finish for an actual Butcher Block Top made out of ONLY hard rock Maple would be something like: Butcher Block Oil, Salad Bowl Oil or even Mineral Oil.

Since you won't be using it for food prep, your standard "Polyurathane" would do just fine and will work well for all of those woods. You may want to try a product called Varathane, which can be purchased at Menards. I don't think Home Depot sells it. It's used on floors too, but I believe it has a "Non-Yellowing" agent, which is what you'll want to keep the natural color of the wood. If you don't mind an amber/yellow tint to it, you can use regular poly.

Anymore questions, chime back.

Thanks

sawdustguy,
Thanks for your help. One other question, for a table top of these dimensions (12"x20"), how thick should I make the legs? I am planning on making square legs 2.5-3' high, but I have no idea how thick to make them. Also, I think it will have a shelf about 1' up.

On another note, I saw, and was amazed by, your red oak wine storage unit. I have tried to use red oak twice and both times had to scrap it and use poplar (thus the red oak in the butcher block!). Yours looked great though.

Thanks again.

I would make them between 2 and 2.5" thick

Thanks for the compliment.

Don't get discouraged by the amount of scrap or firewood you'd accumulate, because we've all been there and even as a professional, I still have some scrap/firewood from time to time. ;)

I agree with Mike - Polyurethane will work good... But.....
:cheshire:

My personal preference for this application would be tung oil. When applied, it will "wick" into the grain of the wood, and after a few coats, will finish to a beautiful, hard, natural finish. Test on a scrap piece if possible before finishing the table top, or the bottom surface of the top.

As far as the legs - How do you intend to attach them to the top? The shelf?

Thanks again for your help. I am not sure how I am going to attach anything yet. I had several ideas and maybe I could get some suggestions.

My first thought was to do a stretcher under the top and the shelf. I was a little concerned about using dowel to edge join the strechers. I was then going to attach the top and the shelf to strechers (I am not sure of the name of the connector I have seen for attaching table tops, but it is in the shape of a figure 8 and allows for expansion and contraction of the top with out seperating the connection).

My second thought was attaching the strechers with mitered half-laps that would be attached to the legs through the lap face. I was worried this would make the piece look too heavy though.

I will definately have a .75"-1" edge (reveal?) on the table top, but hadn't made any decisions on the shelf. I was thinking I could make it flush with the strecher, or cut a rabbet in the strecher and drop the shelf down onto the rabbet so that the top of the shelf and the edge of the strecher are level (this creates some finishing issues with the end grain though).

I am, however open to suggestions. I am not set on using strechers, it just seems that I have seen that done a lot. This is my first project with out plans so I am having difficulty narrowing down my choices.

Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

I'm working on a walnut burl table that could be very similar to what you're looking to do. I made aprons 2.5" wide and used biscuts to attach them to the legs. I will then glue and clamp pieces on the backside of the aprons to use as a "screw rail" to attach the top. I'll post pics, hopefully it will help you better understand how one way it could be done. Check back in a few mins

Here are 3 pics. After taking these pics, it "appears" that I'm missing a thumb, but I promise it's still there as I was born with it. ;)

The first pic shows how I glued and clamped the biscuted legs/aprons together. The second pic shows the biscut slot. The third pic is of the table top.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/creativecustom@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=2310&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/creativecustom@sbcglobal.net/my_photos

One thing with using biscuts for joinery of legs/aprons is that you want to make sure you don't cut your slot too big or over too far otherwise you'll see it, even when you assemble the parts. Porter Cable has FF biscuts which you can use for making face frames. I used a number "0" biscut for this.

Biscuts are easy, quick and a great way of doing this type of project. Don't sell yourself short on a biscut cutter though, spend the money on a good one, because it can only give you good results if used properly.

Please come back as often as you wish during your project to ask questions, we'll be more than happy to help an appreciative person. :)

Herm is right and brain fart forgot to mention Tung Oil. I use to use it until my tounge always got dry. :D Kidding aside, it's a great product and very user friendly.

Unfortunately, I don't think a biscuit joiner is in the cards for this project (it has already netted me a table saw, so I think I have used up its purchasing power!). Do you think I could use dowels to join the aprons (sorry for the misnomer before), to the legs? Also, since the 12" sides are all end grain, should I attach a faced out piece to all four sides? If I did that, would I make it a little taller than the rest of the tabletop to form a lip around the table?

Thanks again for all of your help. This forum is great :)

There is nothing wrong with showing end grain. Go back to that link and it will show you a final picture of the table, but without a finish on it.

If you want, you can buy a molding that is about or around the thickness of your top and miter it all the way around. Not necessary though.

Yes, you can most certainally use dowels. You must be "On the money!" when using dowels. There is NO play. I would spend the 10 or 20 bucks to buy a good doweling jig to where you would run your drill bit through. Don't just use the little metal points. "I don't know how much the jig would be, but it's well worth the few extra dollars to ensure quality.

I've used dowels for many a leg/apron joint, and none of them have failed yet. Years ago I started by using the positioning metal points that Mike mentioned, but bought a self centering jig like the one pictured in the link below....


http://www.rockler.com/ecom7/product_details.cfm?&offerings_id=9975&objectgroup_id=357&catid=72&filter=dowel%20jig

Of coarse Rockler can be a bit more pricey than a lot of places, I bought mine for around $40.

I would leave the end grain exposed too, gives the table character.

Just my .02 :blah:

I'm not sure this hasn't already been covered. I've seen the figure 8 tabletop fasteners on one or the other TV shows. However, you may want to take a look at this McFeely's link: http://www.mcfeelys.com/subcat.asp?subcat=6.2.12

I've used these for quite a few table tops, both large and small. They seem to work very well. I use the bicuit joiner to cut the slots, but you use a continuous slot as well.

Good luck,

Thanks for everyone's help. I need to finish with the top (as I mentioned above, I am hand planing this), then I should be ready to start on the rest of the assembly. I think I saw on another post that you can no longer post pictures with a thread, so I will see if I can figure out how to post them when I am finished.

Thanks, again.